


Sketch

by osprey_archer



Series: Reciprocity [28]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, M/M, Masturbation, Orgasm Delay, Praise Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-14 00:01:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4542525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Jesus Christ, Buck, I want to draw you.” </i>
</p><p><i>“</i>Draw<i> me?” Bucky drawled. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”</i></p><p>Steve walks in while Bucky is cleaning his metal arm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sketch

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [littlerhymes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/littlerhymes/pseuds/littlerhymes) for betaing this!

Steve arrived at Starbucks hot, sweaty, and still cranky despite his extra-long early morning run. He had slept badly the night before, which wasn’t unusual – except it hadn’t happened the whole week since he’d started sleeping with Bucky. Steve had sort of hoped that meant that the nightmares were over. Maybe, he’d thought, sleeping with Bucky – physically being in the same bed – had solved the problem. 

Of course he couldn’t be so lucky. He hadn’t even really slept, or at least it felt like he hadn’t: one minute he’d be dozing off, and the next jerking awake from yet another nightmare and staring blearily at the flat red numbers on the bedside clock. 12:13. 1:45. 3:24. Their drive back to DC loomed closer and closer, and he still hadn’t gotten any sleep.

He had woken up for good when Bucky pinned him down, pinning Steve’s arms with his knees and his one hand at Steve’s throat. “Jesus Christ, Buck!” Steve yelled, and for a moment Bucky’s hand tightened; and then Bucky let go and fumbled for the bedside lamp.

He screwed up his face at the sudden light, and blinked down at Steve. “Oh,” Bucky said, and he sounded puzzled. “It’s you.” He shifted a little, his shins pressing Steve’s forearms into the mattress. “Did you kick me on purpose?” 

He sounded uncertain rather than accusing. Steve wished the light were off again, because his face was turning red. “No,” Steve said. “I guess I must have been thrashing. I had a nightmare…”

Bucky rolled off him. Steve scooted off the bed. “I’ll just go – ” He jerked his thumb at the bedroom door. 

“Don’t,” Bucky said, and caught Steve’s arm. “C’mon, Steve, stay.”

Steve tugged his arm free. “No, I’d better sleep on the couch.”

He’d been stupid to sleep with Bucky in the first place. He punched the couch pillow to try to make it more comfortable. It was lucky that he’d made it this long without kicking him. 

Or no, not luck. It was stress that brought the nightmares back. Stress over going back to DC, stress about the Scapegoat hearings. Probably they’d have to sleep separately in DC, if Steve was going to be having nightmares all the time. Steve punched the pillow again. It didn’t help. 

Finally, even thought the sky was barely gray with encroaching dawn, Steve headed out for his run. There was no reason to lie in bed and let his thoughts circle the drain. 

And now the sun had reached its mid-morning height and Steve’s shirt stuck to his sweaty back and even the long run didn’t make him feel less disgruntled. He got a chocolate croissant in the vain hope that that might help where the run had failed. He snagged a newspaper and a cup of coffee too, and flopped in one of the comfortable chairs by the window and stared down at the front page. 

It took a few moments for his brain to process the fact that there was nothing about the _Scapegoat_ hearings on the front page, even though they were set to begin in just a few days. He flipped through the paper. There was only a short article about them in the national news section, somewhere below an article about a foiled plot to rig the New Year’s ball in Times Square to explode as it dropped. 

Of course the hearings might take over the news cycle again once they actually started, but it was kind of a relief that people had lost interest in them for now. Even if that meant it was less likely that the hearings would end up nailing Coulson and SHIELD to the wall.

Steve rubbed his eyes and ate his croissant and drank some coffee, and he did start to feel better. He could take a nap in the car later. Bucky drove almost like a normal person now.

He bought Bucky an apology frappuccino and headed back to the cabin. He felt uncomfortably sticky from his long run. Maybe he should take a shower before they took off.

“Sorry I’m late,” Steve called as he unlocked the door. “I brought you a frappuccino…”

He stopped in the doorway, keys dangling from his fingers, staring. Bucky sat bare-chested at the kitchen island, frozen in place at Steve’s arrival. He had reattached his metal arm, and it looked like he was cleaning it. The arm plates lay in neat arcs on a grease-smeared towel on the counter, next to a couple of long pieces that must fit inside the arm, and he had most of his right hand actually inside his left arm. Steve staggered, a little dizzy at the sight. 

Bucky slid his hand out of his arm, glaring at Steve the whole time, like he was daring Steve to comment. His hand was streaked with grease, his fingers black with it, and he had a smudge of grease across his cheek and more streaks on his chest. 

He used to get grease-stained like that when he worked on his parents’ car in the summer, shirtless or in just his undershirt. “Jesus,” Steve said. 

Bucky snatched up another piece and carefully fit it into the open cavity of his forearm. “You’re back early,” he accused.

“I’m – actually I’m pretty late,” Steve returned. 

“I was gonna have this all done before you got back,” Bucky snapped. His mouth was a hard line, and he wasn’t looking at Steve.

Steve crossed the room to set the frappuccino down on the counter, a peace offering. He nearly missed the countertop. He couldn’t take his eyes off Bucky, and couldn’t quite figure out where to look, either: his chest? His hand? His metal arm? 

“Stop staring!” Bucky barked. “Jesus! Like I’m some Coney Island freak!” 

Steve understood suddenly that he had interrupted something private – like he’d walked in on Bucky taking a bath. He could feel himself blushing hard. “Sorry. Sorry, maybe I should go,” he said, easing back a step. “I’m not – I didn’t mean to stare, it’s not that you’re a freak, or at least, we’re both kind of freaks of science, but – Jesus Christ, Buck, you’re beautiful, you know that?”

“Fuck you,” Bucky said, petulant but without force. He snapped the last of the metal arm plates back in place and rested his flesh hand there, as if to hide his metal forearm. He must have realized it was a vain attempt, because he jerked his hand away, clenching it in a fist. 

“Don’t be like that,” Steve told him. “You know it’s true. Fuck _you_ , Bucky, I swear to God you strike a pose every time I look at you. Like a model for an art class – do you have any idea how jealous I was when I learned you modeled at my art school back in the day? For a _different_ class, to boot.”

The tension in Bucky’s shoulders eased. “It would’ve been weird if I modeled for yours,” he informed Steve. 

“You could’ve warned me,” Steve shot. “I just about died when I saw the sketches. I was so envious, all those strangers seeing you naked, drawing you – Jesus Christ, Buck, I want to draw you.” 

“Draw me?” Bucky drawled. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” 

“I wouldn’t know,” said Steve. His heart pounded pleasantly in his chest. He could feel the faint breeze of the slowly turning ceiling fan on his skin. “C’mon,” he urged. “I’ve barely done any sketching all week.”

Bucky grabbed up the greasy towel off the table, rubbing it along the metal plating to burnish it. “And whose fault is that?”

“Pretty sure it’s yours,” Steve returned. He tore his gaze from the mesmerizing spectacle of Bucky’s hand rubbing the cloth over his arm. “I swear to god you’re a cat in human form,” he said, and he couldn’t help it; his eyes had fallen to Bucky burnishing his arm again. He could see the muscles moving in Bucky’s chest as he stroked. “Whenever you see – ” He licked his lips. “Whenever you see I’m focusing on something else, you’ve just got to crawl all over my lap and get in the way.”

“Werecat,” Bucky replied, smug, and leaned back in the chair so the muscles pulled taut over his stomach. He stretched to toss the dirty towel into the trash, the muscles tightening in his arm, and then lifted both arms above his head and stretched, twisting to one side and then the other. “Quit drooling,” Bucky said, and Steve wiped his mouth, never mind he hadn’t literally been drooling. Bucky cracked up, hugging his arms around himself. 

“Show-off,” Steve said. 

Bucky smirked, pleased, flushing faintly. “You said you wanted to draw me,” he said, and arched his back a little, so his muscles were clear against his skin. “Don’t you want to draw me looking good?”

“You always look good,” said Steve, in his most long-suffering voice, and Bucky’s smirk changed into a real smile, big and slightly goofy with pleasure. He bit his lip, trying to drag the smile down to something a little smaller and smoother, and he couldn’t quite manage it, and Steve was smiling back at him, just as big and goofy.

“Aw,” said Bucky. “Look who’s talking.”

Steve ducked his head to shield his blush. “How’m I supposed to draw you if you keep yakking and moving around like that?” he complained.

Bucky sprawled as best he could on the barstool, hooking his metal arm around the back. His legs fell open to just the borderline between inviting and obscene. “Always figured those life classes were just an opportunity to make porn for yourself,” Bucky said. 

“Not porn,” Steve protested. “Tasteful, artistic nudity. It’s not like the models were jacking off when they posed.”

“I could if you want,” Bucky said. 

He was joking when he said it, just bantering; but then his eyes met Steve’s, and it wasn’t quite a joke anymore. “Would you?” Steve asked, to give Bucky a chance to make it a joke again. 

Bucky’s face flushed very slightly. “Yeah,” he said. “Only not right here,” he added. “The chair’s not sturdy enough.”

“The beanbag chair,” Steve said, tilting his head toward the big red beanbag chair in the living room. It sat just a little out of the light from the skylight, but if Steve moved it… 

“Wash your hand,” Steve told Bucky. 

“And the rest of it?” Bucky asked, gesturing at the grease smudges on his chest.

“Nah.” Steve’s heart pounded pleasantly. “I’ve always liked it when you look like a bit of rough trade.”

“Steve _Rogers_.” Bucky pretended to be deeply shocked. 

“Wash your hand!” 

By the time Bucky had his hand clean, Steve had dumped his sketchpad and a couple pencils on the couch and positioned the beanbag chair just right in the sunshine. Bucky flung himself on the chair, legs spread, metal arm thrown out perpendicular to his body – probably so it wouldn’t pinch his bare skin, but the extended arm and the slouch of his body made him look cool and powerful and devil-may-care. Steve sat on the futon, and picked up his sketchpad, his blood thrumming hot under his skin; and then Bucky said, “Aren’t you gonna pose me?”

Sweat prickled all over Steve’s body. “Yes,” he said. “Right. Yes.”

The pose was fine already; Steve wasn’t sure how to change it. But he knelt beside Bucky, up on one knee. A strand of Bucky’s hair had gotten caught on his eyelash, and Steve flicked it away. Bucky flinched a little, and Steve moved his hands away, so they hovered uncertainly. He could feel the heat rising from Bucky’s body, smell the faint tang of sweat and metal and grease. He heard it when Bucky swallowed, and his gaze focused briefly on Bucky’s mouth, his wet lips parting slightly as he breathed. 

He dropped his hands to Bucky’s shoulders, the skin hot and the metal warm and slick under his hands. He left his hand still on Bucky’s right shoulder and drew the other hand along the left arm.

Bucky drew in a sharp breath, giving a quick involuntarily movement. Two of the plates pinched Steve’s fingertip. “Ow!”

Steve had his finger halfway to his mouth, but Bucky caught his hand in midair and put it in his own mouth instead, sucking. Steve’s knees went watery. “Oh,” he whispered, and Bucky curled his tongue around Steve’s finger and Steve swallowed and swallowed again, and Bucky pulled Steve’s finger out of his mouth with a pop and then gave the fingertip a quick kiss. “All better?”

It still hurt a little. “Yes,” Steve said. 

“I’ll hold still this time,” Bucky said, and a faint blush rose in his cheeks. “I mean – if you want – ”

“Yeah,” said Steve. “Yeah. I gotta pose that metal arm, right?”

The heat of Bucky’s body made the metal a little warmer by Bucky’s shoulder, but as Steve slid his fingers away, it cooled down to room temperature. No wonder Bucky ate so damn much, even more than Steve. The thing was a giant heat suck attached to his body. 

Steve’s fingers slipped on a faint oily film from the recent cleaning. His fingertips tripped over the grooves between the plates, and he let himself trace them, exploring the arm a little, and Bucky didn’t move and the arm didn’t pinch Steve again. Or at least, Bucky didn’t move the arm. He had turned his head, though, and Steve could feel him watching, and he was – not quite holding his breath, but breathing very slowly as he watched Steve touch his arm. 

Bucky’s metal hand was in a fist. Steve traced over the sharp straight lines of his fingers. “Open up your hand,” he told Bucky, and Bucky loosened the fist so the metal fingers rested open against the beanbag chair. Steve pressed his own palm against the back of Bucky’s metal hand. “Yeah,” Steve said softly, and he lifted his hand back to Bucky’s shoulder. “That’s perfect. Just like that. Now let’s see…”

He drew his hands down Bucky’s chest, keeping his eyes on Bucky’s face. Bucky’s eyes dilated, and Steve’s heartbeat rocketed. His right palm streaked grease from Bucky’s shoulder over his skin, and Steve’s eyes flickered to the dark mark on his skin and back to Bucky’s eyes. “Someday I’m gonna draw on you,” he murmured. “Huh? You like that?”

Bucky’s heartbeat thumped against Steve’s palm. “Yeah,” he said. His eyes were big and dark. “But not today?” he added. “Today you’re gonna draw a picture.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, and slid his hands lower, letting his palms trip over Bucky’s pecs, the nipples drawn in tight with arousal. Steve wanted to pinch them gently, because Bucky loved that and he’d gotten all sweetly embarrassed when Steve found out, but no. No. He had a picture to draw. 

He slid his hands lower, letting his fingertips catch on Bucky’s nipples as he draw his palms over Bucky’s stomach. Bucky drew in a long, slow breath, his stomach hollowing under Steve’s hands. Steve drew his hands together at Bucky’s navel, stroking his thumbs along the line of dark hair beneath Bucky’s belly button that disappeared beneath his waistband.

Bucky wriggled when Steve stopped, thumbs on the button of Bucky’s pants and his palms pressed tantalizingly against Bucky’s lower abdomen through his jeans. He could see Bucky’s cock hardening against the fabric. Bucky’s hips bucked, but Steve pushed them back against the beanbag chair. “Hold still,” he said, and glanced up fast at Bucky’s face, but Bucky was grinning at him.

“Yeah? Yeah? You want me to hold still?” he said, eyes bright and teasing, and he kicked Steve’s thigh lightly. Steve wobbled and nearly fell face first in Bucky’s lap, which was probably what Bucky wanted anyway. He could smell the hot smells of sweat and arousal and a faint tang of metal. 

Steve steadied himself, the heels of his hands pressing into Bucky’s abdomen. Bucky swallowed wetly. Steve’s heartbeat thundered in his ears. “Yeah,” Steve said. “You want me to draw you or what?” 

“Yeah.” 

Steve flicked open the button on Bucky’s jeans. His sweaty fingers slipped off the tab on the zipper, but he got a grip on in the second time round and pulled it down. Bucky was holding very still indeed, quivering faintly from the effort, and when Steve glanced up at his face again his cheeks were flushed and his mouth wet. His body was slick with sweat, and Steve wanted to lick it, and he bit his lip instead and hooked his thumbs over the waistband of Bucky’s boxers and shimmied them down, exposing his dark pubic hair and his hardening cock.

Steve wanted to touch it, give it a squeeze just to feel the heat, run the pad of his thumb over the vein on the underside. He removed his hands from Bucky’s boxers, feeling lightheaded, and began to back away. 

“But you’re not done yet,” Bucky objected, and Steve’s gaze jumped to his face. Bucky pouted at him, lifting his right hand to flap it at Steve. “What should I do with my hand?” 

He’d have to position it around Bucky’s cock. His mind blanked out at the thought. He wouldn’t be able to back away, not after letting himself touch Bucky like that. “Use your imagination,” Steve retorted. He stumbled to his feet, awkward. It pulled his own shorts tight against his cock. He became dizzyingly, disconcertingly aware of how hard he was, and nearly fell to his knees when Bucky clasped the hand in question around Steve’s calf, giving the muscle a friendly squeeze. 

“ _Bucky_.” Steve’s voice was plaintive. 

“You gonna tell me to hold still?” Bucky said, a singsong lilt to his voice. “Come on, Steve, tell me to hold still.” 

“Hold still,” Steve told him. “Let go of me and put your hand on your cock and hold still.” 

Bucky let go. Steve backed away. The backs of his knees collided with the edge of the sofa, and he sat down hard, fumbling for the sketchpad and pencil.

Bucky yawned, a languorous lion-like yawn that stretched his torso and undid most of Steve’s work in posing him. His gaze drifted off somewhere in the middle distance, but although he wasn’t looking at Steve anymore, Steve could tell he was very aware of Steve looking at him. His body arched. Bucky wrapped his hand loosely around his cock, stroking his thumb over the damp head.

Steve snapped his pencil. 

Bucky’s gaze focused on Steve. He smirked. 

Steve blushed, turning away, searching for another pencil. He held his sketchpad so the sharp edge dug into his crotch. “Hold still,” he told Bucky.

“Yessir,” Bucky said, with the faintly mocking intonation he used to get whenever he thought Steve got too pompous with his whole Captain America thing. “You’d better not touch yourself while you draw. Or you’ll never finish the picture.”

Steve found another pencil. It slipped in his sweaty hand, but he grasped it tight. “You’d better not come till the picture is done,” Steve retorted.

Bucky’s eyes widened. He wet his lips, a quick unconscious movement. _He likes this_ , Steve thought, and it sent another wave of arousal through him. His fingers felt weak on the pencil. 

He started to draw anyway, just blocking out the pose for now. A swift curve for the beanbag chair, an oval for the head, a parallelogram for the body. A strong straight line for the metal arm, and he sketched in the sharp angles of the spaces between the plates, too. “I’d like to do a study of your arm sometime,” Steve said. 

“Yeah?” Bucky’s voice had gone a little deeper, slightly breathless. “ _That’s_ what you’re drawing now?” 

“Don’t be impatient.” But Steve had finished his quick sketch of the arm, anyway, and turned his attention back to Bucky’s face: the clean angle of the jaw, the sharp cheekbones, a few jotted strands of hair softening the geometry of his face. He smoothed out the line of Bucky’s shoulders, roughed in his collarbones, the sharp points of his nipples, the ridges of his stomach, and he’d settled into the smooth concentration of drawing, as if the model was simply a collection of lines, a more complicated chair; and he felt a little shock in the pit of his stomach when his gaze caught on Bucky’s cock. His blue jeans had slipped further down his hips, exposing his upper thighs and his balls, draw up close to his body, cradled in his palm. His cock rose up out of his dark pubic hair, long and red and hard against his body, the head damp already. 

Steve forced a few slow breaths and pressed the sketchpad against his crotch again. A sheen of sweat gleamed on Bucky’s body. His mouth hung open, slack. Steve wanted to go over there and straddle him and slip his tongue between Bucky’s parted lips, run his hands over Bucky’s slick body, roll his hips against Bucky’s cock till they both came.

“You’re not drawing.” Bucky’s voice was low. 

Steve put pencil to paper again, trying to capture that expression on Bucky’s face, the parted lips and pleasure-dazed eyes. “Your hand’s not in the right place,” he told Bucky.

Bucky rocked his balls on the palm of his hand. “You told me to use my imagination,” he said, trying to drawl, but his voice hitched a little. 

“I never knew you liked having your balls touched that much,” Steve murmured. The pencil was steady in his hand, but his stomach quivered. “You’ve barely even touched your cock and you’re already so damn hard. Jesus, Buck, I just wanna touch you. Run my hands over you, make you come.” 

“Jesus,” Bucky mumbled. His metal hand tightened on the beanbag chair, metal thumb punching through the fabric. “Picture’s not done yet.”

“Then touch yourself for me,” Steve said. “I wanna draw you with your hand around your cock, Buck, c’mon.” 

Bucky complied. He wasn’t even stroking himself, so close to the edge already he probably figured he’d push himself right over if he did anything more than wrap his hand around his cock, and even that was enough to squeeze more precome out over the head. He dropped his head back, rolling it against the beanbag chair, his eyelashes dark against his flushed cheeks. 

“Hold still,” Steve told him. Bucky went still, chest rising and falling with his panting breaths. Sweat pooled in the hollow of his throat. A drop of sweat clung to the tip of a lock of hair. Steve sketched: a swift angle for the arm, his fingers curved around his cock, tendons jutting in his wrist, the tip of his cock poking out of his hand. Precome oozed over the head. 

“Wish I could draw how wet you are,” Steve murmured. His pencil scratched against the page, shading in the darkness of Bucky’s pubic hair, sketching in his thighs, trying to catch the thigh-trembling tension of him. “Christ, Buck, that’s beautiful. Squeeze a little for me, huh? Yeah. Don’t rock your hips like that, you’ve gotta hold still, remember?” Bucky’s heels dug into the hardwood floor, and Steve’s pencil flashed, trying to capture the sense of tension, of weight. His toes pointed out. The air smelled of sweat and sex and metal, and Steve felt high on it, his pencil flying. “I’m almost done, Buck, just hold it a little longer. Then you can come for me.” 

“Jesus, Steve,” Bucky said sharply. He wrapped his fingers tightly around the base of his cock. His cock jumped, drooling. The muscle tensed in his thighs, his body arching, impossibly tense, beautiful. Then he fell against the beanbag chair, panting, red-faced, his cock still hard and red but his body slack and trembling. 

“You’re doing good, you’re doing so good,” Steve told him. “This picture, this is gonna be a beautiful picture, Buck, you’re so beautiful for me, Jesus.” His hand trembled on the pencil as he began to draw again, shading in the dips at the sides of Bucky’s knees, his elbow, the shadow cast by his body on the beanbag chair, quick lines to show the weight of his body against the fabric. Steve’s cock pressed insistently against his shorts, throbbing, his boxers already damp. “Do you know how beautiful you look like that? I just wanna go over there and just lick you all over, Christ.” 

“Go ahead and _do_ it,” Bucky growled, half-laughing. His torso gleamed with sweat. “What’s stopping you?” 

Steve lifted up the sketchpad, flapping it, and Bucky smacked the heel of a foot against the floor, petulant. 

“Almost done,” Steve assured him, wriggling in his seat, trying to take some of the pressure off his cock. “Almost done, Buck, come on, just hold it for me just a little longer. Run your thumb over the head, yeah.” Bucky smeared his thumb over the head of his cock. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Just like that, Jesus, Buck, you’re so good to me,” Steve said, and Bucky let out a smothered noise like a whine. 

Steve couldn’t resist anymore. He tossed aside the sketchpad and crossed the room and sprawled on his knees on the floor between Bucky’s spread legs, and Bucky let go of his cock to grab Steve’s hair, not pulling, just messing his fingers though it. Steve pressed in, eager, nosing at Bucky’s cock, steadying himself with his hands on Bucky’s thighs, and the muscles jumped under his hands as he squeezed. 

Bucky caught him by his shirt and hauled him up onto his lap, as if Steve didn’t weigh anything, and Steve grabbed Bucky’s shoulders to steady himself, his heart pounding, giddy. Bucky tore Steve’s t-shirt in his haste to get it off him. Steve thrust his hips against Bucky’s. 

“Jesus,” Bucky gasped, and he lifted Steve up again, arm braced across his back. He propelled them both off the beanbag chair so they landed on the floor: Steve on his back, gasping for breath because the drop had knocked some of the air out of him, and Bucky straddling one of his thighs. The metal hand slammed against the floor near Steve’s head, loud, and Steve’s whole body jerked with surprise at the clatter. “Sorry,” Bucky muttered, his mouth against Steve’s skin, sucking greedily at his sweaty collarbones, rubbing his cheek against Steve’s shoulders. He ground his cock against Steve’s thigh. “Steve…” 

“C’mere,” Steve said, and caught Bucky by his bare hips and pulled him up, his chest sliding over Steve’s, skin on skin. The friction pulled his jeans lower, exposing most of his ass, and Steve slid his hands down to stroke Bucky just where his ass met his thighs. Bucky yelped and kicked and gave a little jump, nuzzling into the side of Steve’s neck and nipping at his skin. 

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky begged, and Steve gave them both what they wanted and flipped Bucky over on his back on the floor, all laid out for him like a smorgasbord, and wrapped his hand around his cock and stroked it a couple times and Bucky came, just like that. Steve slid his hand back and cradled his balls and stroked them, too, squeezing it all out of him, till he lay lax and exhausted and limp on the floor. 

He reached up, though, lazily squeezing Steve’s cock through his shorts. He moved his hand higher, stroking Steve’s stomach. Steve was breathing hard, gasping, his stomach heaving up and down under Bucky’s petting hand. “You want me to get you off?” Bucky asked, heavy-lidded. 

“ _Yes_.” Steve only hoped he’d last long enough to get his cock out of his pants first. 

Bucky’s hand slid down the sweaty line of Steve’s stomach. He caught his thumb in Steve’s belly button for a moment, tugging at it, teasing, then slid his hand right under Steve’s waistband to wrap around his cock. He stroked it once, twice; and then he let go and slid his hand down farther, squeezing Steve’s balls. Steve’s knees buckled. He nearly fell on top of Bucky, both hands on the floor so he was bridging Bucky’s body, and he pushed himself to lie down beside him. 

Bucky didn’t stop stroking him. Steve fumbled at his fly. The button popped free. He couldn’t get the zipper open with his cock straining against it, but finally he got his fingers around the zipper pull and pulled it down and dragged his shorts down to free his cock. Bucky wrapped his hand around it, stroking his thumb over the head, and when he squeezed Steve came so hard that the world whited out for a few minutes. 

When he started coming back down, Bucky was wiping him up with his own ripped shirt. “You cost me a fortune in t-shirts, you know that?” Steve murmured drowsily, blinking up at Bucky with heavy-lidded eyes. He must have been out for a little while, because Bucky had pulled his boxers and jeans back in place, although he hadn’t bothered to do up his fly yet. His jeans gaped open over his plaid boxers. If Steve hadn’t felt limp as a damp tea towel just then he would have put his hand there to feel Bucky’s soft cock. 

“You’re lucky I don’t just rip them off you whenever you wear them,” Bucky said. “You wear ‘em so tight, you might as well go around naked, fuck.” 

“You like ‘em, huh?” Steve asked, and yawned. 

Bucky scrubbed the shirt across Steve’s chest and stomach. Steve giggled a little, ticklish, trying to curl up like a pill bug to protect his stomach. But his limbs felt too loose and heavy for curling up, and Bucky began to stroke more gently, sweet and lulling. He tugged Steve’s shorts back into place. The sun was warm on Steve’s chest and face and eyes. His heavy eyelids fell closed. 

He slept a little while. A gurgling sound woke him up. He looked up to find Bucky sitting in the beanbag chair again, wearing a dark blue long-sleeved Henley and sucking up the bottom third of his frappuccino: mostly melted but still cold. The cup dripped with condensation. Steve’s throat felt parched. “Can I have some?” Steve asked. 

Bucky set the cool cup on Steve’s bare chest. Steve yelped, half-starting off the floor, and nearly knocked the cup over. He grabbed it just in time and drank the rest of it down greedily, wrapping the other hand in the hem of Bucky’s shirt. The cloth was soft from years of washing. Steve finished the frappuccino and rested his cheek against Bucky’s side. Bucky put a hand on Steve’s head. “Figured you needed that nap.” 

“Yeah.” Steve was suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry about last night.”

“Hmm?” Bucky scratched Steve’s scalp. “What do you mean?” 

“Keeping you awake…”

Bucky eyed him. “You just woke me up that one time,” he said. Of course. Bucky could sleep through gunfire. Of course he could sleep through Steve’s nightmares, as long as Steve wasn’t kicking. “When I…” He took his hand off Steve’s head and scratched the back of his own neck, embarrassed. “Uh. Sorry for attacking you like that.”

“It’s okay,” said Steve. “I kicked you. The lives we lead, someday you might need that reaction time.” 

The problem of his nightmares, which had seemed so insurmountable that morning, suddenly seemed very manageable. “Our apartment in DC has two rooms. I could just go off to mine if I’m having a bad night and I think I’m going to kick,” Steve said, and had a sudden attack of shyness. “I mean. If you want to keep sleeping together. In the same bed, I mean. I guess we don’t have a bed in your room yet, so actually we’d be sleeping in mine, if you want to, that is…”

Bucky nudged Steve’s ribs with his feet. “ _Steve_ ,” he said, aggrieved. “Yeah. I sleep better with you around.”

“Really?” Steve was surprised. “You always seem to sleep fine.”

“Well, of course you think so. ‘Cause if you’re watching me sleep, that means you’re around, right?” Bucky said, and Steve couldn’t argue with that. 

Bucky made a little face. Steve suspected he was regretting the admission. “I don’t have nightmares all the time like you do,” Bucky said, a little defensive. “Just sometimes. And sometimes it’s just hard to get to sleep. You know. Because I worry about things.” 

“Yeah,” said Steve. “I worry about things too. The _Scapegoat_ hearings…” 

They looked at each other. Then Bucky turned his gaze away. “We’d better check if the place is bugged first,” Bucky said, and his brows knit. “Or maybe we just shouldn’t have sex in the apartment.”

“In case it’s bugged.” Steve rolled onto his stomach to mash his face into the floor. He clenched his arms around the back of his head. “My _life_ ,” he said. “You checked this place, huh?” he said.

“Of course.” Bucky sounded faintly offended. He staggered to his feet. The metal arm dragged at his shoulder; he listed heavily to the side for the first few steps, until he swung it and straightened into his usual swaggering strut, and frowned at Steve, who was watching him. 

“Does it hurt?” Steve asked. 

“ _Steve_ ,” said Bucky. 

“We could at least get you some painkillers,” Steve said. “Or a massage therapist. Or Tony could design you a lighter arm…”

Steve had made all these suggestions before. He had brought the topic up a number of times not long after Bucky came in from the cold, and Bucky always reacted with such blistering scorn that eventually Steve almost dropped the subject. 

Now Bucky just rubbed his face and scuffed his foot across the floor. “I don’t wanna deal with it right now,” he said sullenly. “Aren’t the _Scapegoat_ hearings enough to worry about? We’ve gotta get going anyway. We were planning to leave early.” 

Steve knew the _Scapegoat_ hearings were just an excuse, and Bucky might always have another excuse, but if he didn’t want to talk about it Steve couldn’t force him. “Yeah,” said Steve, and hauled himself to his feet. “Christ, I don’t want to go.” 

“I bet Tony would lend us the cabin again if we asked. It’s not like he’s using it,” Bucky said.

“I know.” Steve sighed. “I know. Okay.” He gathered up his sketchbook and his pencil and shoved them in his duffle bag. “Okay. Back to reality.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Sketch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5738965) by [alby_mangroves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/pseuds/alby_mangroves)




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